This week 70 years ago, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of its most important points is that humanitarian aid is to be granted on a politically neutral basis. But not surprisingly, when it comes to Israel, things appear somewhat different.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) coordinates emergency responses worldwide. Local U.N. offices transfer government money to various U.N. agencies and human rights NGOs.
The office operates in some 30 nations where humanitarian aid is required, including Syria, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan. In Afghanistan, its goal is defined as "saving life"; in Cameroon, it is to ensure that people in a crisis situation survive; and in Yemen and Somalia it's "providing lifesaving aid."
But the definition of humanitarian aid is different when it pertains to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2002, OCHA established a branch in east Jerusalem, where its mission was defined as ensuring that the "rights of the Palestinians living under occupation" are upheld in accordance with international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
Since then, local and international NGOs have received hefty funding, most of which comes directly from governments, for initiatives that fall under the definition of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Since 2003, nearly $5 billion has been raised. The total amount of money that various groups are requesting for their projects for 2018-2020, per person destined to benefit, is higher than in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This is true despite the European Commission Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations having identified the need for humanitarian aid in the West Bank as "low" and the need in the Gaza Strip as "moderate."
Many of the initiatives that U.N. agencies are operating in Judea, Samaria, and east Jerusalem have nothing to do with humanitarian aid. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being transferred from the EU's emergency aid fund to projects that mainly aim to denigrate Israel. In 2017, the fund – to which many countries, including Norway, Germany, Ireland, and Spain, contribute – gave money to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, which is devoted to legal warfare against Israel, so it could document cases in which the IDF supposedly violated international law during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
The Israeli organization Hamoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual frequently petitions the High Court of Justice against the demolition of terrorists' homes, among other issues. It recently received humanitarian funding to "expose procedures in which the military uses arrest and interrogation of minors in the West Bank."
There are organizations that have held true to the real meaning of humanitarian aid. But it is important to note that the human rights industry, which is lavishly funded, frequently exploits important values to goad Israel politically and does so at the expense of people who really need the assistance.
